Her son, who was quite as obstinate as his parent, and a good deal more forthright, replied with paralysing candour: “From what I know of you, ma’am, you would have done excellent well. What’s more, I might have stayed at home every now and then. I don’t say I would have, because I don’t like the place, but I might have.”
So far from evincing any gratification at this handsome admission, Lady Sheringham sought in her reticule for a handkerchief, and applied this wisp of lace and muslin to the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Horace!” she said. “I knew how it would be! So like his father!”
The Viscount did not fall into the error of reading any complimentary meaning into this remark. He said: “Well, dash it, ma’am, there’s no harm in that! Come to think of it, who else should I be like?”
“Whom, my boy, whom!” corrected his uncle gently. “We must not forget our grammar!”
“Never knew any,” retorted the Viscount. “And don’t keep on calling me your boy! I may have a lot of faults, but at least that’s one thing no one can throw in my face!”
“Anthony, have you no consideration for my poor nerves?” quavered his mother, bringing the vinaigrette into play again.
“Well, tell that platter-faced old fidget to take himself off!” said the Viscount irritably. “Never can see when he’s not wanted, and the lord knows I’ve given him a hint times without number!”
“Ah, my b — But I must not call you that, must I? Then let it be Sherry, for that, I collect, is what your cronies, your boon companions, call you, is it not?”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” responded his nephew. “If you hadn’t taken it into your head to come and live here, you wouldn’t have to call me anything, and that would suit me to a cow’s thumb!”
Mr Paulett shook a finger at him. “Sherry, Sherry, I fear your suit cannot have prospered! But never mind, dear boy! Persevere, and you will see how she will come about!”
The Viscount’s cerulean eyes lit with sudden wrath, and a tide of red coloured his cheeks. “Hell and the devil confound it!” he exclaimed furiously. “So you’re at that, are you? I’ll thank you to be a little less busy about my affairs!”
Lady Sheringham abandoned tactics which appeared unlikely to succeed, and contrived to possess herself of one of his lordship’s hands. This she held between both of hers, squeezing it eloquently, and saying in a low tone: “Dearest Anthony, remember I am your Mother, and do not keep me in suspense! Have you seen dear Isabella?”
“Yes, I have,” growled the Viscount.
“Sit down, my love, beside me. Did you — did you make her an offer?”
“Yes, I did! She won’t have me.”
“Alas! The dearest wish of my heart!” sighed Lady Sheringham. “If I could but see you married to Isabella, I could go in peace!”
Her son looked at her in a bewildered way. “Go where?” he demanded. “If it’s the Dower House you’re thinking of, there’s nothing that I know of to stop you going there any day you choose. What’s more, you may take my uncle along with you, and I won’t say a word against it,” he added generously.
“Sometimes I think you wilfully misunderstand me!” complained Lady Sheringham. “You cannot be ignorant of the enfeebled state of my health!”
“What, you don’t mean that you’re going to die, do you?” said the Viscount incredulously. “No, no, you won’t do that! Why, I remember you used to say the same to my father, but nothing came of it. Ten to one, it’s having my uncle always hanging about the place that wears you down. Give you my word, it would kill me in a week, and there’s never been a thing the matter with my nerves.”
“Anthony, if you have no consideration for me, at least you might consider your uncle’s sensibility!”
“Well, if he don’t like it he can go away,” replied his lordship incorrigibly.
“No, no, I am too old a hand to be offended by a young man crossed in love!” Mr Paulett assured him. “I know too well the feelings of mortification you are labouring under. It is very distressing indeed. A sad disappointment to us all, I may say.”
“In every way so eligible!” mourned Lady Sheringham. “The estate would round off yours so delightfully, Anthony, and dearest Isabella is so precisely the girl out of all others whom I would have chosen for my only son! Her father’s sole heir, and although it cannot compare with yours, her fortune will not be contemptible!”
“Damme, ma’am, I don’t want her fortune! All I want is my own fortune!” said his lordship.
“If she had accepted your hand you would have had it, and I am sure I should have been glad to see it in your hands, though heaven knows you would squander the entire principal before one had time to look about one! Oh, Anthony, if I could but prevail upon you to relinquish a way of life which fills my poor heart with terror for your future!”
His lordship disengaged himself hurriedly. “For the lord’s sake, ma’am, don’t put yourself in a taking over me!” he begged.
“I knew she would reject you!” said Lady Sheringham. “What delicately nurtured female, I ask of you, my son, would consent to marry one of whose footsteps are set upon the path of Vice? Must she not shrink from those libertine propensities which — ”
“Here, I say, ma’am!” protested the startled Viscount. “It’s not as bad as that, ’pon my soul it’s not!”
His uncle heaved a sigh. “You will allow, dear boy, that there is scarcely an extravagant folly you have not committed since you came of age.”
“No, I won’t,” retorted the Viscount. “Dash it, a man can’t be on the Town without kicking up a lark or so every now and then!”
“Anthony, can you tell your Mother that there is not a — a Creature (for I cannot bring myself to call her a Female!) with whom you are not ashamed to be seen in the most public of places? Hanging upon your arm, and caressing you in a manner which fills me with repugnance?”
“No, I can’t,” replied the Viscount. “But I’d give a monkey to know who told you about that little ladybird!”
He rolled a choleric eye towards his uncle as he spoke, but that gentleman’s attention was fixed upon the opposite wall, and his thoughts appeared to be far removed from earthly considerations.
“You will break my heart!” declared Lady Sheringham, applying her handkerchief to her eyes again.
“No, I shan’t, ma’am,” said her son frankly. “You didn’t break your heart over any of Father’s fancies that ever I heard of! Or if you did you can’t do it again. Stands to reason! Besides, when I’m married I shall hedge off, never fear!”
“But you are not going to be married!” Lady Sheringham pointed out. “And that is not all! Never in my life have I been so mortified as when I was obliged to apologize to General Ware for your abominable behaviour on the road to Kensington last month! I was ready to sink! Of course you were intoxicated!”
“I was no such thing!” cried his lordship, stung on the raw. “Good God, ma’am, you don’t think I could graze the wheel of five coaches if I’d shot the cat, do you?”
His mother let her handkerchief drop from a suddenly nerveless hand. “Graze the wheels of five coaches?” she faltered, looking at him as though she feared for his sanity.
“Five of ’em all in a row, and never checked!” asserted the Viscount. “Sheerest piece of curst ill fortune that I overturned old Ware’s phaeton! Must have misjudged it. Cost me the wager, too. Backed myself to graze the wheels of the first seven vehicles I met past the Hyde Park turnpike without oversetting any of ’em. Can’t think how I came to bungle it. Must have been old Ware’s driving. He never could keep the line: a mere whipster! No precision of eye at all!”
“Unhappy boy!” exclaimed his mother in throbbing accents. “Are you dead to all sense of shame? Horace, speak to him!”